On 5 May 2014, as he was crossing Belbis Street in Zagazig, a town located 60km north of Cairo, Ahmed was approached by members of the General Investigations – the Egyptian Criminal Investigations Department – and of the Homeland Security. The officers, who had allegedly recognised the 20-year-old student, checked his identity and arrested him saying that he was wanted by their services. Forced into a minibus, Ahmed was brought to the Central Security Forces Camp of Zagazig where he was detained incommunicado for five days during which he was ill-treated. He was then brought before the Public Prosecutor of Zagazig, on 10 May 2014, to have his detention renewed for 15 days pending investigations into his case, under diverse accusations ranging from "belonging to an outlawed group" to "possession of explosive and incendiary devices."

During his detention with convicted criminals − in total disregard of Egyptian prisons' law n°396 of 1956 which demands that people who have not yet been convicted be segregated from convicts − his family sent a telegram to the Public Prosecutor of Zagazig on 30 May 2014 regarding the ill-treatment he had been subjected to, but no investigation was opened, nor was Ahmed allowed to see a doctor.

The 20-year-old student's trial before the Criminal Court of Zagazig began on 12 April and ended on 15 July 2014, when he was sentenced to three years in prison. Ahmed was subsequently transferred on 16 July 2014 to Wadi El Natrun prison, a detention complex where many abuses have been reported in the past years, including torture, humiliations and sexual assaults. One example of such humiliation happened upon his arrival to the prison, when he was put in line together with other detainees in the prison's courtyard and were all forced to strip off their clothes while officers were insulting them. Put in a cell no bigger than 4x6 meters without windows together with 45 other detainees, they were regularly humiliated by the prison personnel. In response to his complaints about the ill-treatment they were subjected to, Ahmed was beaten up by officers and transferred to a political cell.

There, still detained in horrendous conditions, he continued to advocate for his rights, which earned him to be tortured. Among other tortures, Ahmed was handcuffed his hands behind his back and repeatedly beaten by three officers on his entire body and face until he started to bleed heavily; he was also sexually harassed by two other detainees under the officers' orders. Following his ordeal, Ahmed was brought back to the political cell where he started to tell about the abuses he had been subjected to, earning him to be further beaten up under the pretext that he was "disrupting the tranquillity of the prison" and "sowing discord amongst prisoners." Since then, the 20-year-old student suffers from both hearing and vision loss and has still not been granted the right to see a doctor.

"It is sad to say that the horrendous acts to which Ahmed was subjected are not an isolated case but depict the reality of prisons in Egypt where torture is common place, especially against young people like him," said Rachid Mesli, Alkarama's Legal Director. "The international community must take urgent measures to ensure that torture is effectively tackled by the authorities." In this sense, Alkarama sent a communication to the UN Special Rapporteur on torture (SRT) to ask the Egyptian authorities to ensure Ahmed's physical and psychological health and to grant him access to a doctor. Investigations should also be opened into the acts reported he reported and the perpetrators brought to justice. Bound by the Convention against Torture (CAT) since its ratification in 1986, Egypt has so far failed to correctly implement it and it is high time that the authorities, in coordination with the civil society, take appropriate legislative and practical measures to do so.

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